Posted on 16 February 2008

Hungry

By Chris Silva

Somewhere between cryogenic sleep and consciousness Az felt his synapses beginning to thunder. Slowly, awareness returned. The thaw continued and Az was able to begin his mental calisthenics. He carefully went over the cryo-checklist one step at a time. The stinging in his toes, ignore the pain. His fingertips burning; must move each one very slowly to increase blood flow. Leg muscles should be flexed and released every few seconds. His checklist progressing he felt the remaining images of his last dream fade into obscurity, reality coming forward.

He and his crew were on a long journey through the dark nebula Epsilon11. They had entered the cryogenic containers just after inputting Jin, the Neuro-comp, with the proper coordinates. The ship must be nearing its destination, for Jin had disengaged the Cryogenic systems. Az felt the warm infusion starting to flow into his limbs from the Kelvin unit. Not much longer and he and his team would reach the 36.8 degrees Celsius needed to be released from the containers.Read the full story

Posted on 10 February 2008

Watchman
Babel Series Part One

By Tom Crask

Those who have never laid eyes on the Watchmen, standing tall and proud in the desert twenty five miles due North West of Babel, whether at sunset, silhouetted against the rapidly darkening sky, or on a summer’s morning as dust devils kick up their distinctive brand of chaos, would find it hard to claim that they truly understood how much of a rare and exquisite thing we lost when the era of the Construct finally came to its spectacular close.

There are six of them in total, one hundred and fifty foot tall totemic spires of Growth Bone, Calcine, and Blossom Glass, bedecked on all sides with terraces, platforms and loggias, sun-bleached and standing to attention like nine pins spilt upon the desert or deep sea hydro-thermal vents rising from unfathomed depths. They are a culmination of sorts, a denouement of what the Life Programmes, of what the Construct era itself set out to accomplish, a proud proclamation of what the Bio-tects thought themselves capable of.

These days they are said to retain only a fraction of the cognisance that they once possessed. That they were alive at all now seems somehow unlikely. That they were once aware, in their own strange way, of the world that they inhabited seems almost implausible, but then I only work for Bill Hatton’s governorship. I have never pretended to fully understand the Construct phenomenon, that period of life creation, in all of its bizarre and richly imagined guises. Even in these post-Taint days, the Meat Salons and Biology Houses still seem to me to possess a certain dreamlike quality, an air of unreality, as though such things never existed at all and were only ever a figment of our collective imagination, a story dreamt up by tellers of tall tales.Read the full story

Posted on 06 February 2008

Beckett only realised how dark his world had been after the removal of cataracts late in his life. For me it was the realisation of how dark the world really is, now, for each and everyone, and will continue to be so unless I can convince you otherwise. However, it wasn’t cataract removal that lifted the veil for me; it was a dead man’s eyes. Let me attempt to lift the veil from yours.

For twenty-eight years I’ve stumbled around in the darkness. My hands have been my eyes; they give me dimensions, distances, compositions, textures, many many things, but they are a poor substitute for vision. I could never tell you what a blue sky, a tomato, a simple thing like a green pea looked like. Oh, I could describe its size, feeling, weight but never its colour, its delicate shades and nuances, the way light would coruscate over the ripe contours of a dew-laden bunch of grapes. These are things which were lost to me, until recently. But I should go back, explain my handicap a little and tell you of its cure, and yes, also tell you of the bigger handicap which that cure brought with it. Whether you believe me or not remains to be seen…

‘President O’Connor has stated he will not bow to the demands of the terrorists. USAF jets are already in the air, and should the threat to blow up the cruise ship with all three thousand passengers on board be carried out, then retaliation in the form of a surgical nuclear strike will go ahead. As of yet we have had no reply from the terrorist leader Konrad Naiman, however there are unconfirmed reports that the Navy Seals did manage to disable the vessel before being overcome. Casualties are reported to be high. The Sea Urchin now lies adrift six hundred and fifty miles off the east coast of America, and should the dirty bomb onboard be exploded, fallout is thought to be negligible. However, the ship itself would be completely destroyed.’ Read the full story

Posted on 02 February 2008

Encounter

By Christopher S. Silva

I felt a twinge when I touched it. The bed reminded me of what happened.

Our house was large and warm. We’d lived there for many years and my wife and children loved it.

That night we went to bed and like many nights I read to the boys and watched as they slowly fell asleep. I tucked them in, pulling the blankets high and kissed each of them on the forehead. Quietly, I turned off their light and smiled at the dim glow of the night light shaped like a teddy bear.

I stepped into the hall and moved towards our bedroom feeling good and tired. My wife was reading in a small dim circle of light from our bedside lamp. I went to my side of the bed and asked how she was doing; she simply smiled a kind of sensuous grin and turned off the light.

*

We separated in a gasp, my pulse thrumming, our love sealed in a kiss. We both dozed off into warm darkness.

The scream woke me with a start. It was the children! I was out of bed running fast towards their room. I hit the door hard and was shocked, knocked back by the blinding light!Read the full story